WHO to promote Yoga worldwide

The World Health Organisation is now working with centres in India and across the world to support the knowledge of yoga with scientific evidence and incorporate it into universal healthcare approaches, a senior official of the agency has said.

“Yoga is used in many settings in which the health challenges are being addressed and it has a very prominent place in the holistic approach through prevention and control of health disorders,” Nata Menabde, Executive Director, WHO office to the UN told reporters at the UN Headquarters in New York yesterday ahead of the International Yoga Day on June 21.

She also stated that the “ancient vedic gift of India to the world, needs to be studied and supported by scientific evidence and then incorporated in to the approaches to universal healthcare.”

“WHO is working closely with collaborating centres in India and across the world to bring this “unique knowledge” and to support it with scientific evidence to incorporate and standardise some of the practices of yoga”, Manabde further added.

WHO is also looking to bring yoga into education of medical practitioners since it is a challenge to standardise yoga practice.